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Office of the Special Rapporteur Condemns Murder of Journalist in Brazil and Urges the State to Adequate the Protection Mechanism to Media Worker’s Needs

August 29, 2016

Washington D.C. - The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemns the August 17 murder of journalist Maurício Campos Rosa in the municipality of Santa Luzia, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The Office of the Special Rapporteur expresses its concern and urges Brazilian authorities to act promptly and diligently to determine the motives behind the murder and to identify and punish the perpetrators.

According to the information available, Campos Rosa was shot five times by unknown assailants as he was leaving a friend’s house on the night of August 17. He later died at a local hospital. Campos Rosa, 64 years of age, was a businessman and journalist who owned the newspaper O Grito, which was known for covering political activities in the region and for exposing cases of corruption. According to the Civil Police, an investigation into his murder has been opened.

This is the fourth murder of a journalist in Brazil this year. On March 10, João Valdecir de Borba was murdered in the municipality of São Jorge do Oeste, State of Paraná, on April 9, blogger Manoel Messias Pereira, known as Manoel "Benhur," was killed in the municipality of Grajaú, State of Maranhão, and on July 24, journalist João Miranda do Carmo was murdered in the municipality of Santo Antônio do Descoberto, State of Goiás, Brazil.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur has reiterated that States have an obligation to take measures to prevent violence against journalists and media workers, and protect journalists in situations where they may be at risk.

The State of Brazil has a "protection program for human right defenders" extended to journalists and media workers. The Office of the Special Rapporteur regards as essential the need to adequate this mechanism to the needs of journalists and for it to be widely disseminated amongst media workers in order to offer guarantees to those who are threatened by their journalistic activity. The Office of the Special Rapporteur urges the State to strengthen the protection mechanisms for communicators in all the regions in Brazil and to provide a budget for its functioning. In this regard, the State informed the Office of the Special Rapporteur that the federal government would have recommended state programs to invite journalist and the media organizations’ to its meetings.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur recalls that the obligation to conduct the investigation with due diligence and exhaust all logical lines of inquiry is especially important in cases of violence against journalists; an investigation that fails to consider aspects related to the regional context as well as the journalist's professional activity will be less likely to yield results. The Office of the Special Rapporteur insists upon the need to create special investigative bodies and protocols.

Principle 9 of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expressionof the IACHR states that "[t]he murder, kidnapping, intimidation of and/or threats to social communicators, as well as the material destruction of communications media violate the fundamental rights of individuals and strongly restrict freedom of expression. It is the duty of the state to prevent and investigate such occurrences, to punish their perpetrators and to ensure that victims receive due compensation."

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression was created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to encourage the defense of the right to freedom of thought and expression in the hemisphere, given the fundamental role this right plays in consolidating and developing the democratic system.